The basic technical concept behind the hydrocratic generator is the spontaneous mixing of two water or other fluid streams that differ in their salinities. Thermodynamics teaches that when two aqueous solutions with different concentrations of solutes make contact with each other, there is a driving force for the solutes from each solution to diffuse into the other until the concentrations are the same throughout the combined liquid. The energy driving this mixing is described by thermodynamics as the free energy of mixing, and it is believed that the energy is mostly contributed by the entropy of mixing. That driving force can usually be calculated from thermodynamic equations which are well known and date back to the late 19th century.
One example of that driving force in action is osmosis, which is slow because of the slow diffusion of material back through the membrane separating the two liquids. One objective is to derive a way to cause that mixing to take place much faster, fast enough to generate a moving stream of water. In just one of many embodiments, various experiments which have been carried out in this regard tend to show that the hydrocratic generator makes it possible to mix about 30 volumes of sea water with 1 volume of fresh water in just a few seconds. This is an example only, and the actual mixing ratios will of course differ from one system to another based on the size, construction and configuration of the hydrocratic generator.